Maddie May stays present for Hoosier Women's Am win on adopted home course
That kind of calm is truly learned.
'I definitely have learned that,' she said. 'There's been a couple tournaments – you go through it where you have those buffers or you have those leads, I've lost them plenty of times. I think you just learn that all you can control is yourself.'
May hails from Christchurch, New Zealand, and first competed in the U.S. when she was 13 years old. She would annually travel to San Diego for the Junior World Championships and signed with Ole Miss in 2021. She joined that roster in the spring of 2022 but transferred to Indiana for the 2023-24 season.
May now benefits from a home track in Bloomington, Indiana, that sharpens every tool in the bag.
'Around the Pfau, anything can happen,' May said after her victory.
Truly. Her week began with a tournament - and personal (Pfau) - record 67 that included four birdies on the front nine. She lost ground with a 40 on the front nine the next day but held her five-stroke lead with a 2-under effort on the back nine.
'Keeping to my game plan and being able to stay in the present moment and hit shot by shot on that back nine really helped me to pull myself back into it and post a score that gave me that buffer heading into today,' she said.
A final-round 74 left May with a nine-shot victory over Nicole Johnson of Edwardsville, Illinois.
May felt so at peace at the start of the week that even her caddie, a friend who used to work at the Pfau Course, noticed. It led to the 67 that ultimately set her up for the victory.
'I was talking to my caddie on the first hole and I was just like, I feel this overwhelming sense of calmness today. And he was like, you look really calm,' she said. 'I think that I was just able to do what I was doing, just within that rhythm, and I never really lost touch with that rhythm.'
This is the third year she has competed in the Hoosier Women's Amateur, with previous finishes of T-7 in 2024 and sixth in 2023.
She has grown close to many Pfau regulars, and by the 13th hole, a growing number of locals and golf course staff had joined her gallery to watch her close out a win.
Instead of returning home to New Zealand this summer (it would be winter there anyway, she noted), May remained in Bloomington to work on her game at the Hoosiers' facility and knock out a few more credits to make her upcoming season a bit more manageable. She is an accounting major, which follows in the footsteps of her parents Tim, the CFO of the Christchurch Airport, and Paula, a retired accountant.
Paula was just in Bloomington a week ago, but before her daughter's Hoosier Women's Amateur victory, she headed a little farther west to visit Maddie's older brother Zach, a senior on the golf team at Iowa State. Maddie's younger brother Sebastian is a sophomore on the Sam Houston State golf team.
In June, Maddie May won the Indiana Women's Open Championship. She tied for ninth at the Indiana Women's Amateur last month. Still, it wasn't an easy past year for May as she finished in the top 10 only one time in 10 starts with her Indiana team. She finished outside the top 50 six times. May credits her family, particularly Zach, for pulling her out of the slump.
With a season of college golf left, May hasn't completely ruled out professional golf as a career, 'as long as I can stay enjoying the game and really playing because I enjoy it.' May has a road map, or at least a fair bit of inspiration, in fellow New Zealander Lydia Ko.
When May was 9 years old, she competed in a Play with the Pros event and was paired with Ko for nine holes. That was in February 2013, a week before Ko, at 15 years old, won the New Zealand Open. May remembers being in shock most of the day, so much so that she can't remember a lot of details about the round.
'Just watching her success is really cool for all us girls who come out of New Zealand because it's such a small country,' May said.
But if May doesn't choose Ko's route? There's always big-city life here in the U.S., where May would love to remain and work in a Big Four accounting firm.
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